to it? even if dutiful,
does not think about it? How few there are who fear the death even of
the best of wives, who do not even calculate the probabilities of it.
Pray, what litigant, after having been successfully defended, retains
any remembrance of so great a benefit for more than a few days?" All
agree that no one dies without complaining. Who on his last day dares to
say,

"I've lived, I've done the task which Fortune set me."

Who does not leave the world with reluctance, and with lamentations? Yet
it is the part of an ungrateful man not to be satisfied with the past.
Your days will always be few if you count them. Reflect that length
of time is not the greatest of blessings; make the best of your time,
however short it may be; even if the day of your death be postponed,
your happiness will not be increased, for life is merely made longer,
not pleasanter, by delay. How much better is it to be thankful for the
pleasures which one has received, not to reckon up the years of others,
but to set a high value upon one's own, and score them to one's credit,
saying, "God thought me worthy of this; I am satisfied with it; he might
have given me more, but this, too, is a benefit." Let us be grateful
towards both gods and men, grateful to those who have given us anything,
and grateful even to those who have given anything to our relatives.

XVIII. "You render me liable to an infinite debt of gratitude," says our
opponent, "when you say 'even to those who have given any thing to our
relations,' so fix some limit. He who bestows a benefit upon the son,
according to you, bestows it likewise upon the father: this is the first
question I wish to raise. In the next place I should like to have a
clear definition of whether a benefit, if it be bestowed upon your
friend's father as well as upon himself, is bestowed also upon his
brother? or upon his uncle? or his grandfather? or his wife and his
father-in-law? tell me where I am to stop, how far I am to follow out
the pedigree of the family?"

SENECA. If I cultivate your land, I bestow a benefit upon you; if I
extinguish your house when burning, or prop it so as to save it from
falling, I shall bestow a benefit upon you; if I heal your slave, I
shall charge it to you; if I save your son's life, will you not thereby
receive a benefit from me?

XIX. THE ADVERSARY. Your instances are not to the purpose, for he who
cultivates my land, does not benefit the land, but me; he who pro